who are supposed to have such attachments: a practice much more common on the Vigil, as we described yesterday. Bells formerly used to be rang on this feast, and the ringing, which began on the eve before, was continued through the night and all the next day: a custom not quite gone out of use. In an old sermon preached at Blanford Forum in Dorsetshire, January 17th, 1570, it is stated, that "there was a custom, in the papal times, to ring bells at Allhallow tide for all Christian souls." In the draught of a letter which the impious King Henry the Eighth was to send to Cranmer" against superstitious practices," "the Vigil and ringing of bells all the night long upon Allhallow Day and night," are directed to be abolished: and the said Vigil to have no watching or ringing. In the appendix also to Strype's Annals of the Reformation, vol. i. the following injunction, made early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, occurs, among many other follies and impieties of her reign: "that the superfluous ringing of bells, and the superstitious ringing of bells at Alhallowntide, and at All Souls Day, with the two nights next before and after, be prohibited.”—See Burnet's Hist. Ref. p. ii. 237. CHRONOLOGY.-The great Earthquake in Portugal, by which Lisbon was destroyed, happened today in the year 1755. It is described by Mallet: Fell Earthquake! Now towers, temples, palaces, November 2. ALL SOULS. St. Victorinus Martyr. CHRONOLOGY.-Sir Samuel Romilly died in 1818. ALL SOULS DAY.-This day is set apart by the Christian church for the commemoration of the faithful departed, and for a general prayer for those detained in purgatory. As the consideration of this day involves the doctrine of purgatory, or a middle state, it may be necessary to give some account of that doctrine. We think it more prudent, therefore, on a subject which a large portion of mankind hold as sacred, to quote from reputed authorities, than to offer any imperfect explanation of our own. Butler observes, "The church approves perpetual anniversaries for the dead. For some souls may be detained in pains to the end of the world, though after the day of judgment no third state will any longer subsist. God may, at the end of the world, make the torments of souls, which have not then satisfied his justice, so intense in one moment that their debt may be discharged."-Butler's Lives, vol. xi. p. 41. It may here be observed, that the doctrine of the Catholic, and consequently of the early church, is that of a final restoration of souls in Paradise, after their sins be burnt and purged away." The eternity of hell torments not being a doctrine of the sacred Scriptures, nor of the early Christians, we must reject it; for we are bound to form our notions of Christianity on the Bible and the opinions of the early Apostles and Disciples of Jesus Christ. But we will proceed with our authorities. The learned Bishop Milner, in his invaluable work on the "End of Religious Controversy," after some elaborate proofs of purgatory from the ancient Scriptures, observes, "To come now to the New Testament. What place, I ask, must that be which our Saviour calls Abraham's bosom, where the soul of Lazarus reposed, Luke xvi. 22, among the other just souls, till he by his sacred passion paid their ransom? Not heaven, otherwise Dives would have addressed himself to God instead of Abraham; but evidently a middle state, as St. Augustin teaches. Again, of what place is it that St. Peter speaks, where he says, Christ died for our sins; being put to death in the flesh, but enlivened in the spirit; in which also coming, he preached to those spirits that were in prison. 1 Pet. iii. 19. It is evidently the same which is mentioned in the Apostles' Creed: He descended into hell: not the hell of the damned, to suffer their torments, as the blasphemer Calvin asserts, but the prison above mentioned, or Abraham's bosom; in short a middle state. It is of this prison, according to the Holy Fathers, our blessed. Master speaks, where he says, I tell thee, thou shalt not depart thence, till thou hast paid the very last mite. Luke xii. 59. Lastly, what other sense can that passage of St. Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians bear, than that which the Holy Fathers affix to it, where the Apostle says, The day of the Lord shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man's work of what *De Civit. Dei, l. xv. c. 20. + Instit. 1. ii. c. 16. Tertul., St. Cypr., Origen, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, &c. sort it is. If any man's work abide, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work be burnt, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire. 1 Cor. iii. 13, 15. The prelate's diversified attempts to explain away these scriptural proofs of purgatory, are really too feeble and inconsistent to merit being even mentioned. I might here add, as a further proof, the denunciation of Christ, concerning blasphemy against the Holy Ghost; namely, that this sin shall not be forgiven, either in this world or in the world to come, Mat. xii. 32: which words clearly imply, that some sins are forgiven in the world to come, as the ancient Fathers show: but I hasten to the proofs of this doctrine from tradition, on which head the prelate is so ill advised as to challenge Catholics."End of Religious Controversy, part. iii. p. 107. Dr. Milner again reminds his readers:-" In the first Liturgy of the Church of England, which was drawn up by Cranmer and Ridley, and declared by Act of Parliament to have been framed by inspiration of the Holy Ghost, there is an express prayer for the departed, that God would grant them mercy and everlasting peace.' It can be shown that the following bishops of your church believed that the dead ought to be prayed for, Andrews, Usher, Montague, Taylor, Forbes, Sheldon, Barrow of St. Asaph's, and Blandford. To these I may add the religious Dr. Johnson, whose published Meditations prove, that he constantly prayed for his deceased wife. A late celebrated theological as well as philosophical writer of our own country, Dr. Priestley, being on his death bed, called for Simpson's work On the Duration of Future Punishment, which he recommended in these terms: It contains my sentiments: we shall all meet finally we only require different degrees of discipline, suited to our different tempers, to prepare us for final happiness.' Dr. Paley so far softens the punishment of the infernal regions, as to suppose that, 'There may be very little to choose between the condition of some who are in hell, and others who are in heaven!"" 112. p. In the "Reasons of a Philosopher for being a Catholic" we find," Reason 15, Because, viewing how infinitely mixed and interwoven are vice and virtue in all persons, in different degrees, the doctrine of a general division of mankind into those who are to be eternally happy and those who are to be eternally miserable, in consequence of their conduct on earth alone, is, to a philosophic mind, quite inadmissible; while the Catholic doctrine of purgatory and penance is a comfortable as well as a scriptural mode of explaining the apparent difficulty. And it presents a further encouragement to virtue and religion, by connecting more closely our own eternal interest with that of our departed fellow creatures; to pray for whom is, among Catholics, not only an act grateful to the benevolence and attachment of the friends of the deceased, but is enjoined as a duty, and is thus connected with our own hope of enjoying their society in a future state for ever."-Fides Catholica, p. 13. As some philosophers, among the paradoxes of modern times, have affirmed their disbelief in the separate existence of the soul, we shall devote a future day to the consideration of the antiquity of the doctrine of the distinct nature of Body, Life, and Soul. See November 7. Adrian thus addresses his own soul when dying, which proves his belief in its separate existence from the body Animula vagula blandula Nec, ut soles, dabis jocos. -- All Souls Day has been one of great celebrity, and to which many superstitious customs belonged, which were continued long after the change of religion in this country. Among many other customs may be noticed that of baking large cakes, called Soul Mass Cakes, which were given to the poor on this day; and in return for which the latter used to pronounce benedictions on certain crops, and couple it with good wishes for the soul of the donor : God save your soul, Beans and all. In many distant parts of the island these cakes are still baked and eaten by the peasantry. The ringing of church bells also on this day is a very ancient custom, and began on the vigil. It was not a festive ringing like that practised still on All Saints Day, but was a religious office performed for the further protection of the souls in purgatory against the influence of the Devil, being a sort of misconceived and superstitious relique of the popular practice of ringing bells as a provision for the security of departing souls, of which our Passing Bell is a remnant. In a poem entitled, " Honoria, or a Day of All Souls, Lond. 1782, the scene of which is supposed to be in the great church of St. Ambrose at Milan on this day, when this most solemn service is performed for the repose of the dead, are these lines: Ye hallowed bells, whose voices through the air There is a description of All Saints Day in Barnabe Googe's Translation of Naogeorgus's Popish Kingdome, which is grossly exaggerated, like many other accounts of Catholics written by Protestants. The subject of Passing Bells, and indeed the history of this sonorous instrument of percussion in general is so curious, that we shall subjoin some observations thereon. For many of which, as for the authorities, we are indebted to Bourne, and to Brand, in the Popular Antiquities. Bourne considers the custom of the Passing Bell as old as the use of bells themselves in Christian churches about the seventh century. Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History, speaking of the death of the Abbess of St. Kilda, tells us, that one of the sisters of a distant monastery, as she was sleeping, thought she heard the wellknown sound of that bell which called them to prayers, when any of them had departed this life. Bourne thinks the custom originated in the religious idea of the prevalency of prayers for the dead. The Abbess of the monastery above alluded to had no sooner heard the bell, than she raised all the sisters and called them into the church, where she exhorted them to pray fervently, and sing a requiem for the soul of their mother. The same author contends that this bell, contrary to the present custom, ought to be rung before the parties were dead, that their friends might pray for them; this was formerly the case, and we doubt not gave origin to the first tolling and then ringing the bell: for the ringing, which is a greater play of the bell, whereby both sides are hit by the clapper, commenced just at the death of the parties prayed for, in order to direct the change in the form of prayer to begin. 66 Bells Fuller, in his "Good Thoughts in Worse Times," 12mo. Lond. 1647, p. 3, has the following very curious passage:Hearing a Passing Bell, I prayed that the sick man might have, through Christ, a safe voyage to his long home. Afterwards I understood that the party was dead some hours before; and, it seems, in some places of London, the tolling of the bell is but a preface of course to the ringing it out. had better be silent than thus telling lyes. What is this but giving a false alarme to men's devotions, to make them to be ready armed with their prayers for the assistance of such who have already fought the good fight, yea and gotten the conquest? Not to say that men's charity herein may be suspected of superstition in praying for the dead." Dr. Zouch, in a Note on the Life of Sir Henry Wotton, Walton's Lives, 4to. York, 1796, p. 144, says, "The soul bell was tolled before the departure of a person out of life, |
